guys, please just remove goalkeeper movement and timed finishing. 1st one is complete garbage that should never exist and the other one just destroys the normal shooting like it did this year and it's also really idiotic to have timed finishing when everyone knows that the gameplay is heavily delayed every weekend

I believe they should focus on their servers.
Gameplay has been horrific like never before this year for many of us....they can change a million things but if servers/connection won’t be upgraded....there won’t be a real improvement.

Please pay special attention to the new "dinked passes" feature...Ensure there is a 100% counter to intercept these passes which can be initiated manually by a defender. Or base it on pressure and proximity to the passer because if it is RNG this will turn effectively into a user-initiated nutmeg for making successful passes that are covered.

The error prone increase on the chaining of skills should only apply to the same skill move, so repetition of croquetas or anything else will be effected but not skillers deliberately chaining DIFFERENT moves. There are ppl who just want to skill to have fun, don't exclude them.

Also Stop Lying..Nobody likes Goal keeper movement, Just remove it and timed finishing.

In my opinion timed finishing is unnecessary because it wasn't present in previous FIFA's and now a lot of people are complaining about it. It's best to just remove it for FIFA 20. Also, it wasn't mentioned in the article but there is a problem in FIFA 19 about players PACE. It's weird that for ex. Salah having 91 PACE is being caught up by the 60 PACE defender. It's hard to use this atribute of a player to your advantage.

In reducing the effectiveness of AI defending and encouraging manual control you are indeed promoting skilful defending, but this is only in the scenarios where a single attacker faces a single defender, such as in an attack based around dribbling/skill moves.

When attempting to protect against a passing-based attack, controlling a single player is only half the battle. Yes, you can press the ball, attempt to intercept or even anticipate runs. But you cannot do all those things at once. If our attention is now to be directed more towards manually defending the ball-carrier we must rely on our AI to track runs (whether AI or human triggered).

Certainly skill should not be removed from this aspect either, tracking runs should not solely be an AI task, but we do need to be able to delegate to our AI when we deem manually defending the ball-carrier is the priority.
Similarly, if we deem that tracking the runner is more important, we do require a mechanic, such as contain, that allows to at least place some pressure on the ball-carrier to prevent a free-run to goal/free shot.

Otherwise, attacking simply becomes a game of dribbling at a defender, triggering an AI run and waiting to see which the human defender opts to prioritise. You then choose to attack via the other avenue, the one that is AI-controlled, removing the human's ability to counter.

Simply put, the number of mechanics, skill required to perfect those mechanics and AI-involvement in said mechanics needs to be perfectly balanced across both attacking and defending for competitive gameplay. It is my concern that this may not be the case in Fifa 20.

If you execute this list of areas well I'll be really excited about the gameplay in Fifa 20. many of the issues I have with fifa 19 are being worked on so thats great.

my concerns reading the article are as follows:

- chaining skill moves aren't really a problem outside of the La Croqueta. Please be careful not to make a game where genuinely skilful players aren't able to combine skills effectively. what we don't want is ppl spamming easy skills on repeat but we do want intelligent skill combos to work.

- there was a note about reducing first time passing efficiency.....again its about a balance, being able to play tiki taka is important.

-regarding timed finishing - we dont need it, and we defiantly dont need it inside the box. it devalues good football moves.

-crossing accuracy in genial is too good and the general crossing heading dynamic ought to have and more complicated mechanic that requires skill. timed shooting of all things should be the mechanic for heading but rather than increasing ur chance of scoring u should have to time it green to have any chance of scoring at all.

I personally, absolutelly LOVE, LOVE, LOVE LOVEEEEEEEEEE the fact that automatic defense a.k.a. pressing X and L2 all day to defend is going to get nerfed. That was one of the things that were most needed in Fifa, one that made players that had a deeper understanding of football be -too- beatable by beginners or people with way less knowledge and understanding. I also love the fact that movement after a pass is in order to create a better dynamic is going to be improved, I love the changes on shots, on broken mechanics. Practically most of the things I read will be very important for the gameplay.

But aside from that, I saw no mention of the terrible current state of bounces.

Also, I think it would be great to have an option for switching players faster with the right stick, with no delay in between, for people who know how to not make mistakes. If I could hold the stick in a direction to fast cycle, with no delay in the middle, between my defenders, allowing me to reach a defender in a shorter time that is "further" (two or three changes away) in the line. Many times I know where an assist will be given by the rival team, but I can't reach my defender in time because I have to start switching way sooner than I should, knowing the game too well, and it's not a reaction thing anymore, just because there's a delay when switching with the right stick (half a second or about 400ms I think before switching to the next player). That would also bring this game's defensive aspect to new heights.

Oh, and I believe that CDMs should not have automatic defense enabled, or containment. If you are to have 4 + 2 extra defenders behind, you should at least have the ability to manually control the CDMs. Doing this would also enable other formations to be valid again, because the 4 2 3 1 is too predominant now because of the pure manpower behind paired with the tremendous help the automatic defense is for people with less knowledge.

- Fifa 19 got abandoned legitimately half way in, I don't think we had gameplay changes since February or so, a live content game with just half a year of changes is a bit weird

- Timed finishing is basically getting rendered useless. Why not take it out at this point? Imo if you take the risk of trying to hit a 2 frame window and you actually hit it, you should be rewarded. Making the window smaller is ok, further decreasing the accuracy of those shots makes trying to hit it not worth it. Especially in bad gameplay, it will result in this part of a "skillgap" never being used, because the risk/reward ratio isn't there.

- the chaining skillmoves part is very weird. The issue is exactly one skill, la croqueta. Will there be a difference between spamming the same skill and different skills (imo there should be, otherwise every skillrun is just dead). Also will there be a difference based on dribbling and skillmoves or will R10 be as dead as Elton after 3 skills?

"When attempting to protect against a passing-based attack, controlling a single player is only half the battle. Yes, you can press the ball, attempt to intercept or even anticipate runs. But you cannot do all those things at once. If our attention is now to be directed more towards manually defending the ball-carrier we must rely on our AI to track runs (whether AI or human triggered)."

Yes, but that is how the game is right now, you have to keep track of the person that is going to receive the ball, and when the rival sees that you are anticipating his fast run he switches to try and dribble your AI defender, so you switch back to him, and start manual defending with him. You have to fast cycle to one and the other quickly, and timing for switching, being to able to switch quickly is very important. Once the opponent has wasted his run forward on the second player you only have to stop the dribble from the player with the ball and then their play will be over.

As an offline player, Im delighted to see Career Mode getting some love. Its long overdue.
One thing - I know that you have to prioritise online and adjust your gameplay to mostly suits online players. And thats fine.. but I would love to see more options to edit gameplay for offline players.

I played Fifa19 Career with adjusted sliders, on slow speed. Even on slow it felt too fast. I would love to have an option to choose Very Slow speed, to make the game more realistic.

Also - my biggest issue this year was lack of AI fouls and physicality. AI tackles were near perfect and rarely resulted in fouls.
Football game needs fouls. Its one of the basic things in football. I would love to see more physicality on the pitch.
I understand that you have fluid, fast gameplay to suit online players.
But it would be absolutely amazing to see few more slider options, that we could use to resolve the issue.
If we had "COM Aggression slider", or something similar, everyone would be happy.

In regards to "contain", why is this even in the game at all? It makes no sense that holding one button allows the AI to completely control your player for you.

I think it would be helpful to know why this was ever implemented.

What would be a good idea is to remove it by default for online, just like Legacy/Tactical Defending..

I understand that allowing it in single player/offline modes would alleviate much of the problem. What I dont understand is why it was ever implemented in the first place. It is the equivalent of automatic aiming in FPS games, or automatic steering controls in racing games.

"When attempting to protect against a passing-based attack, controlling a single player is only half the battle. Yes, you can press the ball, attempt to intercept or even anticipate runs. But you cannot do all those things at once. If our attention is now to be directed more towards manually defending the ball-carrier we must rely on our AI to track runs (whether AI or human triggered)."

Yes, but that is how the game is right now, you have to keep track of the person that is going to receive the ball, and when the rival sees that you are anticipating his fast run he switches to try and dribble your AI defender, so you switch back to him, and start manual defending with him. You have to fast cycle to one and the other quickly, and timing for switching, being to able to switch quickly is very important. Once the opponent has wasted his run forward on the second player you only have to stop the dribble from the player with the ball and then their play will be over.

So what I see is important here is the player switching speed.

That is a fair point and would contribute to countering it. But for me it is not a complete solution.

In your scenario the attacker is controlling only one player and does not need to rely on the AI. Even if an AI attacking run is triggered that is minimal dependence on the AI and is actioned by the human without having to switch focus. Whereas the defender must control two players, intermittently, to successfully contain the attack. Whichever avenue the defender chooses to prioritise they are relying on the AI to adequately perform the other. In reality you depend on your teammates to hold a solid line whilst you engage the ball carrier. Of course their ability to do this relies on their competence, but this is where better cards come in. Generally speaking I need to be able to rely on the AI to do the minimum, which for me might be tracking a run but NOT tackling, so that I can do the rest. The AI should never be relied on to defend on their own, agreed, but they need to be able to support me. In my example I would consider this adequately tracking a run or blocking a path to goal but leaving the actual engagement/ball-winning to me.

guys, please just remove goalkeeper movement and timed finishing. 1st one is complete garbage that should never exist and the other one just destroys the normal shooting like it did this year and it's also really idiotic to have timed finishing when everyone knows that the gameplay is heavily delayed every weekend

Well yeah i agree goalkeeper movement should never be able to to be used as a last resort bail out option.

Shooting never needed timed finishing if ea really wanted shooting to be skilled then the options are already there and ea are failing to use those options...semi/manual shooting fixed to all online matches is the way forward i would love to see people attempt scoring 360° no scopes, flick up volleys and ridiculous first time shots consistently with these settings because people wouldn't be able to do it consistently all the time.

It all seems like good progress and some of the appointments across some of the content creators is a good move. Would love to see Nick (runthefutmarket) get some credentials with you. You need to acknowledge that people have now become traders and trading is a huge part of the game. Stop banning people for it. Employ Nick to interact with that side of the growing community. Also for all the issues you're going to fix... doesn't excuse the fact this has been a very poor version of the game. You need to reward people who have stuck with this year. 50% off fifa 20 or something. Because this year has been an awful addition to the fifa franchise. You owe us as a fan base for enduring it. All the best to Corey and Zaro. Let's hope next year improves and is a complete change from this game.

I still can't find EA addressing the SERVERS Issue. If you don't add/fix your servers, your entire adjustments will be useless. What's the point of improving the gameplay if one can not defend, pass, shoot in a laggy and slow gameplay. We want more SERVERS for every region, not that an entire continent relies on one server. Care about about your users that are not just from from NA and Europe. Focus on other regions as well. Add more servers in Asian Countries (Pakistan, India, Iran) and for every other country that does have a dedicated server... there are thousands of users playing from these countries but they don't have a server for their countries.

So first off, thanks for this article about your intentions towards the next FIFA. Summing up what feedback you have taken in consideration gives a better insight in what we can expect and about what we as a community want. So please continue with these kind of articles from time to time aswell as giving us updates about your progression, even if it's not going into the right direction.

Secondly I really want to see something to be done with interceptions. Nothing gets me more triggered than seeing the ball go past my controlled player within a range of a single step. I do hope this will be part of the defensive gameplay plans you guys have.

Finally I would like to see something like a report/feedback option. Give people the ability to sign up in somesort and give them access to a simple mechanic to send direct feedback about a game they've just played. After a game is finished and something strange happened, just by pressing a button in the postgame menu they can send their feedback. I would like to do that but rightnow it's too much of a hazzle to upload it from xbox live to the cloud for only then to be able to send it towards you guys. Make it easier, I want to help and many other do too.

Anyways, good job drafting this article and I'm looking forward towards what you have in stock for us in FIFA20 (please don't call it only EA Sports FIFA as shown in the EA Play promo on twitter).

What I don't see or haven't heard about in any updates for the new FIFA 20 is "PLAYER MOVEMENT". WHat about player movement off the ball where players make intelligent runs and not just in a straight line, arching runs in different directions etc instead of your players standing about like lumps of wood after spending 1 million on them. Surely we can get auto player runs and good ones in rder to stop us spamming the L1 button constantly?

Amazing update, hopefully EA actually stick to their guns here and implement things properly. Fully agree with everything they posted, can't believe people are complaining about the skills, go play fifa street. How many times have you seen a "chained skill" in a real match?

Additional points

1) remove timed finishing, no point having it
2) for pro clubs especially do something about stock defenders competing Vs 6"5 99 rated pros in the air, every match is just a spam cross and header fest
3) stamina! Again for pro clubs, high pressure from 99 rated pros running up and down the pitch all game long

Every year is tha same promess, but every year EA deliver an infinished game, a lot of paths that doesn't work, and more promesses the other year... You dont respect who is buying this game every year.

Also forgot to mention, the ultimate long term goal for pes and FIFA is to introduce inertia and momentum, get past defenders by wrong footing them with feints rather than 50 skills in a row.

I have to admit I'm shocked by this update, never expected it and am very optimistic about the future now whereas FIFA 20 was gonna be the first FIFA I didn't buy for many years before I saw this update

Fifa 19 is the worst fifa of all times. I drop the game in january, because I couldnt believe I paid for that. Fifa 17 was really good. Why can't you only update the game? You want to reinvent the whell every year. Fifa 19 seems like you have all new employees working... Have you fired everbody? The game has NOTHING good. NOTHING.

Generally happy with all these adjustments pending what else is added to the game. But key areas are not mentioned.

1. First and most important, inconsistent game play and how a player one game is agile and accurate then the next he turns like a tank and passes like he's kicking a medicine ball. Either explain why or fix. Its not a connection issue. It looks and feels like programming.

2. Goalkeeper movement. Why? What does it add?

3. Skill moves have a real place in football but el tornado is just non sense. In real life this never happens and will be effective less than 1% of the time. Real skills for real situations are needed but this just needs to go not just made harder to pull off.

First of all, great writting. It's good to see that you are really concerned about our opinions.

I don't really expect a great gap from FIFA 19 to FIFA 20. Next-gen will arrive next year, so you will need to be prepared.

That said, I would like to mark three points:

1º Tackles: When you try to steal a ball doing a tackle, sometimes the player doesn't go for the ball, he "tackles the air".

2º I have read that you want to reward the player's risks. Well, I love to try to guess where my rival is going to pass the ball. The problem is that a lot of times I guess right the pass, but my player "tackles" or maybe I should say that he opens his legs and the ball passes between them. That is very frustrating. This is an example:https://youtube.com/watch?v=KdpH7PjAC44

3º Long passes: This is a notable problem. When a defender (not a Xavi or Iniesta, a random defender) tries to clear the ball, specially after a corner, the precision is too good, they can give a perfect pass for the wingers or the stricker.